First Experimental Ebola Vaccine Tested in DC Region

Seven people in the Washington, D.C. area this week reportedly have become the first to receive an experimental Ebola vaccine.

According to WTOP, the experimental vaccine, which was “created by Canada’s Public Health Agency,” protected primates against Ebola infection and “also led to increased survival rates if it was administered after Ebola was contracted.”

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This is reportedly the “first time the vaccine has been given to human test subjects” and “the hope is to vaccinate six more on Thursday, according to Dr. Shon Remich, director of Translational Medicine at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland.” The clinical trial started on Monday.

Officials say one reportedly cannot contract Ebola from the vaccine, and “the plan is for a total of 39 people to be vaccinated and studied over the coming seven to eight months.”

The government has accelerated its quest to find an Ebola vaccine after two nurses contracted Ebola while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian immigrant who died last week after becoming the first person on American soil to be diagnosed with the disease.